Americans mark Thanksgiving with parades, turkey Turkey, stuffing and a helium-filled Thomas the Tank Engine are on the menu as friends and families gather across the United States to celebrate Thanksgiving. Here's a look at how Americans are celebrating: ___ A MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY SUCCESS Oohing and ahhing spectators of all ages lined the route of the nationally televised Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which counted Thomas the Tank Engine, Paddington bear and the Red Mighty Morphin Powe...

Ferguson residents clean up, hope for calm night FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Business owners and residents boarded up windows and cleared away debris Wednesday as Ferguson sought a tentative return to normal after two nights of unrest over the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case. Protesters continued to hold scattered demonstrations, including a group that rushed into St. Louis City Hall screaming "Shame, shame." Police locked down the building and called in more than a hundred extra offi...

Snow makes Thanksgiving travel 'a little hairy' MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A sloppy mix of rain and snow rolled into the Northeast on Wednesday just as millions of Americans began the big Thanksgiving getaway, grounding hundreds of flights and turning highways hazardous along the congested Washington-to-Boston corridor. By early evening, more than 700 flights had been canceled, the bulk of them in the Northeast, during what is typically one of the busiest travel periods of the year. Thousands of ...

4 people shot at Pennsylvania mall barbershop READING, Pa. (AP) — Four people have been shot at an eastern Pennsylvania strip mall barbershop where another shooting happened a day earlier. Reading police Chief Robert Heim says one person has been critically injured in the shooting while the other three have suffered minor injuries. Authorities say no one is in custody. The Reading Eagle newspaper stated the shooting happened Wednesday afternoon at the All Stars Hair Salon and Unisex Hair ...

Ferguson businesses torched in overnight protests FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Smoke billowed from burned-out buildings and sidewalks were strewn with broken glass Tuesday morning after Ferguson erupted over a grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer in the killing of unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown. Firefighters doused the blackened remains of some businesses Tuesday morning and at least one building was still ablaze. Some Ferguson stores that weren't burned had smashed dis...

Violence in Ferguson after no indictment announced FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Protesters smashed windows out of police cars and businesses, several of which were later set ablaze, and officers lobbed tear gas from inside armored vehicles to disperse crowds Monday as violence overtook protests in Ferguson. Some of the hundreds of people who gathered outside the Ferguson Police Department erupted in anger as St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch's announced that Officer Darren Wilson, who is white...

Grand jury won't indict Ferguson cop in shootingFERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — A grand jury declined Monday to indict white police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed, black 18-year-old whose fatal shooting sparked weeks of sometimes-violent protests and inflamed deep racial tensions between many African-Americans and police. Within minutes of the announcement by St. Louis County's top prosecutor, crowds began pouring into Ferguson streets to protest the decision. Some ta...

Obama defends moves on immigrationPresident Barack Obama is shrugging off Republican criticism of his actions to lift the threat of deportation from millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States. In an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Obama said it was important that he act unilaterally to prioritize the deportation of criminals and recent arrivals and spare those who have lived here illegally for at least five years and have roots, including chi...

Police: Pregnant woman, 3 others fatally shot CLEVELAND (AP) — A pregnant woman and her unborn child were killed along with three other people in a shooting at a Cleveland home that also injured the pregnant woman's 9-year-old daughter but left the woman's toddler son unharmed, police said Saturday. Sherita Johnson was 28 weeks pregnant when she was shot outside her home around 7:30 p.m. Friday, police said. A 17-year-old girl and two men, ages 19 and 60, were also killed, but the Cuyahog...

Florida shootout leaves deputy, gunman dead TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man set his house on fire and then started shooting at responding police officers, firefighters and first responders Saturday, killing a deputy and wounding another one before he was shot to death by law enforcement, authorities said. The first deputy who approached the house at the end of a cul-de-sac about 10:15 a.m. was shot to death. The gunman picked up the deputy's gun, walked down the street and used it to sho...

Only eight states to dodge icy air from slipping polar vortexAccuWeather.com reports as the polar vortex gets displaced to the south, the door will open for arctic air to plunge over the most of the United States as the new week progresses. Only the Southwest, Hawaii, Alaska and south Florida will escape the grip of the upcoming arctic blast that the polar vortex can be blamed for. "The polar vortex is a large pocket of very cold air, typically the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere, which sits over...

US agencies struggle vs. cyberattacksA $10 billion-a-year effort to protect sensitive government data, from military secrets to Social Security numbers, is struggling to keep pace with an increasing number of cyberattacks and is unwittingly being undermined by federal employees and contractors. Workers scattered across more than a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Education departments to the National Weather Service, are responsible for at least half of the federal cyberincid...

Man charged in hit-run Halloween deaths of 3 teens SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Prosecutors filed charges Tuesday against a driver charged with fleeing in his SUV after fatally striking three Southern California teenage girls as they were trick-or-treating on Halloween. Jaquinn Bell, 31, was charged with three felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, one felony count of hit-and-run with permanent injury or death, and one misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license, th...

Voters holding their noses, hoping for change Coast to coast, voters cast ballots with an audible harrumph on Tuesday — many of them unhappy with their choices and doubtful things will get better no matter who wins. There's Emily Conover, a 39-year-old saleswoman from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, who voted for Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes over Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Conover said she "didn't really like either of them." There's Ron Buck, a 44-year-old roofer...

Early votes exceed 15 million — but who benefits? WASHINGTON (AP) — Early votes soared past 15 million across 31 states on Friday, an outpouring that is giving hopeful Republicans as well as nervous Democrats cause for optimism heading into the final weekend of a campaign with control of the Senate, the U.S. House and 36 governorships at stake. Republicans pointed to a strong early-vote performance in Iowa as evidence that Joni Ernst was a step ahead in her bid to capture a Senate seat for th...

Spacecraft for tourists explodes on test flight MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — A winged spaceship designed to take tourists on excursions beyond Earth's atmosphere exploded during a test flight Friday over the Mojave Desert, killing a pilot in the second fiery setback for commercial space travel in less than a week. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo blew apart after being released from a carrier aircraft at high altitude, said Ken Brown, a photographer who witnessed the explosion. One pilot was found d...

Death penalty sought for trooper ambush suspect LORDS VALLEY, Pa. (AP) — A survivalist accused of ambushing two state troopers, killing one and seriously wounding the other, was captured on Thursday by U.S. marshals in an abandoned airplane hangar, ending a seven-week manhunt that had rattled the nerves of area residents, authorities said. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Eric Frein, who meekly gave himself up when surrounded, District Attorney Ray Tonkin said. "He did not just g...

Police: 2 dead, including gunman, in school attack MARYSVILLE, Wash. (AP) — A student recently crowned freshman class Homecoming prince walked into his Seattle-area high school cafeteria Friday and opened fire, killing one person and shooting several others in the head before turning the gun on himself, officials and witnesses said. Students said the gunman was staring at students as he shot them inside the cafeteria at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. The shootings set off a chaotic scene as ...

Arkansas Department of Health continues to provide Ebola guidance, training to health care facilitiesLITTLE ROCK — While Ebola poses a very low risk to Arkansans, the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) continues to work with hospitals, emergency medical service providers, laboratories, waste water management facilities, faith-based organizations, the State Chamber of Commerce and the Departments of Education and Higher Education to provide guidance and training to ensure they can appropriately screen, monitor and care for individuals who may...

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Arkansas Department of HealthThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Second Texas nurse tests positive for Ebola DALLAS (AP) — The Ebola crisis in the U.S. took another alarming turn Wednesday with word that a second Dallas nurse caught the disease from a patient and flew across the Midwest aboard an airliner the day before she fell ill, even though government guidelines should have kept her off the plane. Amid growing concern, President Barack Obama canceled a campaign trip to address the outbreak and vowed that his administration would respond in a "mu...